What interventions, where, when, and how?

By Uthpala Wijesuriya

Interventions. What interventions? Where, when, and how?
And most importantly, why now?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a book, and like all books, it has an author: Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent political and foreign policy analyst, and much more besides.

His life has been full of interventions. And this is a record of those interventions.

From the heart of Sri Lanka to the world out there, from Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser to Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Schmitt, from his roots in journalistic and literary circles to his tenures as Ambassador to Geneva, Paris, and most recently Russia, Dr Dayan Jayatilleka has seen it all and been through it all.

For the lack of a better way of putting it, he remains as relevant as ever.And this book tells us why he is relevant.

But before I get there, a brief introduction to myself. I am Uthpala Wijesuriya, co-editor of this book, currently studying law and international relations.

Ladies and gentlemen, the immediate question before us is clear.

What does this book contain?

Interventions: Selected Political Writings is divided into three sections.

Part I delves into Sri Lankan politics. It traces writings from the 1980s to the present day, on a variety of topics and themes, including the present electoral moment. Drawing from historical examples, Dr Dayan analyses contemporary Sri Lankan politics, firmly rooted in a progressive-radical world-view.

Part II focuses on international politics, with a spotlight on Russia, where he served as our Ambassador from 2018 to 2019. Here he focuses on the shift in the current world order, and how these shifts were prefigured in the immediate post Cold-War period itself.

Part III takes a more personal turn, exploring the colourful personalities he has encountered or written about, including Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Nagalingam Sanmugathasan, and Mervyn de Silva.

Now, you may be wondering how on earth a young man like myself ended up being involved in a book of this nature.

Well, it’s because of another young man.

No, not Uditha Devapriya, my co-editor. But Dr Dayan.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the issue of relevance.

Despite being over 50 years my senior, Dr Dayan possesses a knowledge and awareness of the latest trends and fads, the latest pop culture, which rivals even the most tech-savvy Gen Zer. His ability to connect with youth through his articles is truly remarkable.

As a Gen Zer myself, I think that shows how a public intellectual can, or should, shape his or her interventions to be more relevant to his society, and his people. Uditha has already referred to this elsewhere, so I will not mention it here.

But let me add something. There is a personal angle to the gestation of this book. In 2023, Uditha Devapriya and I became involved with building up an exhaustive catalogue of Dr Dayan’s articles – in a word, interventions – from the 1970s to the present.

I remember going through these articles with much interest. Though going back 20 years before my time, I was struck by how relevant they seemed to me. Coming from a political science and law background, I immersed myself in them.

As I read them again and again, I realised that I was not just cataloguing them.

I was learning from them.

What strikes me about this compilation is its inclusion of Dr Dayan’s older writings, which remain as relevant today as ever. Many of the seeds of today’s problems were planted in the issues, incidents, and themes explored by these articles.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes this book relevant.

When discussing Dr Dayan’s journey, one cannot ignore the evolution of his thinking. As he himself contends, the shifts he has undergone do not signify a change in his underlying values. His consistent stance against the LTTE and violent sectarianism within the JVP – and his advocacy of the JVP today – serves as a testament to that.

Throughout his career, Dr Dayan has advocated for devolution and regional autonomy as a means of addressing the grievances of the Tamil people, while adamantly opposing the use of terrorism to achieve liberation.

Dr Dayan has also remained a critic of individual governments while staunchly defending the legitimacy of the State. His ability to distinguish between State and government is a rare trait among political thinkers in Sri Lanka. As a political science student, I learnt early on to appreciate the difference between the two. But it is a distinction few political thinkers, even those on the liberal and left-liberal space in Sri Lanka, have made.

This, ladies and gentlemen, may be his biggest intervention yet.

In conclusion, “Interventions” isn’t just a book. It is a guide on how to intervene, even in the face of impossibility. Before I finish, I must extend my gratitude to Mrs Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka, Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, and my co-editor, friend, and research partner in crime, Uditha Devapriya, without whom none of that would have been possible.

Thank you.

“Interventions: Selected Political Writings” is now available at bookstores, including online stores. For more information, you can contact the publishers at or the editors at .

Uthpala Wijesuriya is a law and international relations student and history researcher who can be reached at wijesuriyau6@gmail.com. He is one of two leads of U & U, an informal art and culture research collective, X handle @uanduthoughts.